Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to honor a fallen airman who died in military service to this country. U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert M. Brown, of Portsmouth, VA, was lost on Nov. 7, 1972 in his F- 111 near Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam. The remains of Lieutenant Colonel Brown were located in North Vietnam and returned June 7, 1995. He was finally identified on December 14, 2011 and accounted for on February 25, 2012.

Robert Brown graduated from the US Naval Academy in the top 30 percent of his class and was given his choice of branch of service. He chose the US Air Force and trained as a pilot while adding to his bachelor of military science degree with an electrical engineering degree from the University of Michigan. Before his first deployment he was assigned to NASA and worked on the Mercury and Gemini Space programs. During his first tour of duty in Southeast Asia in 1966, Major Brown compiled an impressive record of 299 combat missions while flying the F100 Super Sabre. Upon returning to the United States, he went to work in Research and Development for America's Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems program as a project scientist. In 1972 he returned to Vietnam for his second tour as a highly decorated fighter pilot to fly the most advanced combat aircraft of its time--the F111A Aardvark.

On November 7, 1972, the F111A crew, call sign ``Whaler 57'' departed Takhli Airbase, Thailand on a single aircraft strike mission. Its target was the Luat Son Highway ferry and ford nestled in a populated and forested area where the highway crossed over the river approximately 24 miles south of the major port city of Dong Hoi. After reporting that its mission was proceeding normally, radio contact was lost after 0400 and by 0500 a 2 week long search and rescue effort was commenced.

Efforts to recover ``Whaler 57'' were unsuccessful, but the remains of Lieutenant Colonel Brown have finally been found and identified. Lieutenant Colonel Brown is survived by his sister Gail and his children Beverly, Margie, and Bruce. Today, I ask all Members of the Senate to join me as we honor the life and legacy Lt. Col. Robert M. Brown, and the other Americans in our Armed Forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. There are no words fitting enough to fully express our thanks.

Mr. President, the battlefields on American soil contain our national history and commemorate the events that made our nation what it is today. Too many of these sites are open to urban development that could 1eave no trace of the sacrifices made there.

That is why I am pleased to introduce the American Battlefield Protection Program Amendments Act, which reauthorizes Federal competitive matching grants to protect these historic lands. I was proud to have supported this program at the State level when I was Governor of Virginia, and I am proud to be joined on this bipartisan legislation by my colleague, Senator Thad Cochran from Mississippi. Our States hosted key battles of the Civil War, and we have led the Nation in preserving the land on which these defining battles were fought.

This bill extends the authorization for the American Battlefield Protection Program for 5 years at the current funding level and adds sites of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 to the program's eligibility. These grants have a 1/1 federal/non-federal match, which is often exceeded on the non-federal side by private contributions from people interested in American history.

This program is strictly voluntary. The bill specifies that land will be acquired only from willing sellers and only at fair market value. It also authorizes funding solely for land acquisition and does not incur development or maintenance costs for the National Park Service.

It would be worth protecting these battlefields for the historic value alone, but these activities also have economic value. Battlefield tourists do not simply pass through a region. They pay for guided tours. They stay in hotels and bed and breakfasts. They dine at local restaurants. They browse the shops on town streets. According to a study by the Virginia Tourism Corporation, Civil War tourists in Virginia stay twice as long and spend double the money of the average tourist. Of out-of-town visitors interviewed at 20 battlefields, two- thirds were visiting the area specifically to see the battlefield, and three-quarters said they would visit other Civil War sites while in the area.

Virginia is a state where history is all around us, and to understand this history is to understand ourselves as Americans. This effort brings together federal, state, and private sector supporters to ensure that future generations will be able to visit these sites and appreciate the historic deeds that transpired on this hallowed ground.

Mr. President, the battlefields on American soil contain our national history and commemorate the events that made our nation what it is today. Too many of these sites are open to urban development that could 1eave no trace of the sacrifices made there.

That is why I am pleased to introduce the American Battlefield Protection Program Amendments Act, which reauthorizes Federal competitive matching grants to protect these historic lands. I was proud to have supported this program at the State level when I was Governor of Virginia, and I am proud to be joined on this bipartisan legislation by my colleague, Senator Thad Cochran from Mississippi. Our States hosted key battles of the Civil War, and we have led the Nation in preserving the land on which these defining battles were fought.

This bill extends the authorization for the American Battlefield Protection Program for 5 years at the current funding level and adds sites of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 to the program's eligibility. These grants have a 1/1 federal/non-federal match, which is often exceeded on the non-federal side by private contributions from people interested in American history.

This program is strictly voluntary. The bill specifies that land will be acquired only from willing sellers and only at fair market value. It also authorizes funding solely for land acquisition and does not incur development or maintenance costs for the National Park Service.

It would be worth protecting these battlefields for the historic value alone, but these activities also have economic value. Battlefield tourists do not simply pass through a region. They pay for guided tours. They stay in hotels and bed and breakfasts. They dine at local restaurants. They browse the shops on town streets. According to a study by the Virginia Tourism Corporation, Civil War tourists in Virginia stay twice as long and spend double the money of the average tourist. Of out-of-town visitors interviewed at 20 battlefields, two- thirds were visiting the area specifically to see the battlefield, and three-quarters said they would visit other Civil War sites while in the area.

Virginia is a state where history is all around us, and to understand this history is to understand ourselves as Americans. This effort brings together federal, state, and private sector supporters to ensure that future generations will be able to visit these sites and appreciate the historic deeds that transpired on this hallowed ground.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the motion of Senator Warner and his argument for budget compromise and a budget conference that would enable us to find that compromise for the Nation. During my campaign for the Senate I heard this over and over. Every time I would turn on the TV it seemed there would be someone, even a colleague from this body, arguing that the Senate had not passed a budget in 2 years or 3 years or 4 years. That was a point that was repeated over and over. Then, coming into this body, often sitting there in the presider's chair, I have heard that speech delivered from the floor of this body in January and February, often with charts demonstrating the number of days it had been since the Senate passed a budget.

We know as part of the debt ceiling deal a bill was passed, signed by the President so, arguably, even the claim of no Senate budget was inaccurate. But taking that claim at its word, that the Senate had not passed a budget in 4 years, you would think that, having passed a budget, everyone would be excited and would be willing now to move forward to try to find a compromise for the good of the Nation.

Instead, what we have is an abuse of a Senate rule, an individual Senator standing up--even though they had a chance to vote against a budget and to vote on 100 amendments about a budget--they are utilizing and abusing a prerogative to block a budget conference.

For those listening to this who do not understand what a conference is, it is exactly what it sounds like. We passed a budget. The House passed a budget. The next step in normal business would be for the two budgets to be put in a conference and House and Senate Members to sit down and, God forbid, listen to one another and dialog and hopefully find compromise.

That is all we are asking to do, to have a process of listening and compromise. Yet individual Senators are objecting, blocking even the opportunity to have this discussion. In the 4 months I have been in this body we have had two major budgetary issues and I think it is important to point them both out. The first was the issue surrounding the sequester, a designed regimen of nonstrategic, stupid, across-the- board budget cuts that were never supposed to go into place. In late February this body developed a plan that was able to attain more than 50 votes, to turn off the sequester, to avoid the harm to the economy and other key aspects of the military, and to do it and find first year savings. That proposal was able to get more than 50 votes in this body. It had sufficient votes to pass. But the minority chose to invoke the paper filibuster process to block it from passing. They were not required to. Fifty votes is normally enough for something to pass. We could have avoided the filibuster altogether. We could have avoided the sequester altogether and the harmful cuts. Yet the other side decided: We are going to invoke the filibuster to block it from happening. That was the first instance of an abuse of the Senate rules to proceed with normal budgetary order.

Now we are in the second such instance. On March 23, this body passed a budget in accord with normal Senate order, and as we have seen over the past few days, the very group of people who criticize the Senate for not wanting to pass a budget have done everything they can and pulled out every procedural mechanism they can come up with to block the us from coming up with a budget. This is an abuse of rules, and it is directly contrary to the Members' claims--now for years--that they wanted to pass a budget. This is not just a matter of budget nor is it a

matter of numbers on a page. This is hurting our economy.

Everyone in this Chamber will remember that when the American credit rating was downgraded in the summer of 2011--in the aftermath of the discussion about the debt ceiling limitation--the reason cited for the downgrade was not that the mechanics of the deal were bad; instead, our credit was downgraded because of the perception that legislators were engaging in foolish behavior and threatening to repudiate American debt instead of focusing upon their jobs and trying to do the right thing for the economy.

It was legislative gimmickry, not the details of the deal, that caused us to have a bond rating downgrade for the first time in the history of the United States. It hurts the economy when we elevate legislative gimmickry above doing the Nation's business, especially on matters such as the budget.

There are some signs of economic progress these days. The unemployment rate is moving down, the stock market is moving up, the deficit projections going forward are moving down, but we know we have a long way to go. There is more work to be done, and finding a budget deal that addresses the components which Senator Warner mentioned is one of the factors that can create confidence to additionally accelerate the economy.

A budget deal will provide an additional acceleration to the economy. I have to ask the question: Is that what people are truly worried about? Are they worried about doing the budget deal that will accelerate the economy because it might not work to their particular political advantage? That is the concern I have; otherwise, why wouldn't they be true to the cause they have had for the past few years to actually have a conference and find a deal?

This is not only hurting the economy, this is hurting defense. The hearing I had earlier with Senator King was the hearing of the Seapower Subcommittee of Armed Services. In that hearing we talked about the effect on the Nation's security and on our defense that is being visited upon us as we are going through budgetary challenges, including the sequester.

We talked about the effect of the sequester on what the witnesses called the platform, the shipbuilding, and the assets we need to keep us safe in a challenging world. We talked about these budget crises and how they hurt our planning. Because instead of planning in a forward- looking way, we are tying up all of our planning time to meet one self- imposed crisis after the next. We talked about the effect on readiness. Because of the sequester, one-third of the air combat command units in this country are standing down at a time when we may well need them today or tomorrow.

Finally, and most important, we talked about the effect of this budgetary uncertainty on our people, whether it is civilians being furloughed, whether it is private sector ship repairers getting warning notices because the ship repairing accounts cannot be done consistent with the sequester. This also affects people who are trying to make a decision about whether they want to make the military a career, and they look at Congress's unwillingness to provide budgetary certainty so they may decide maybe it is not the best thing to do right now.

Whether it is our platform, whether it is our readiness, whether it is our planning or whether it is our people, this sequester and these budgetary challenges and crises are hurting our ability to defend our Nation at the very time when the world is not getting simpler or safer but it is getting more challenging.

Many of my colleagues came from a joint session this morning with the President of South Korea, who is visiting at a time of incredible concern because of Northern Korea's nuclear ambitions that will call upon us, the United States--just as with so many other challenges around the world--to have a well-planned and well-financed defense of the Nation.

I join Senator Warner in expressing disappointment. We passed this budget. We passed it 46 days ago. We were here until 5 in the morning. We voted on 100 amendments. Everyone had a chance to have their say and have their vote. Guess what. After our conference, they will have a chance to have their say and vote again. They will have a chance to express their opinions.

I urge my colleagues to rethink their position and allow this budget to move into conference so we can do the business of the United States of America.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to perform a solemn duty today, which is to commemorate the shooting at Virginia Tech of 32 students and faculty members who were killed 6 years ago today and many others who were injured:

Ross Alameddine, Jamie Bishop, Brian Bluhm, Ryan Clark, Austin Michelle Cloyd, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva, Kevin Granata, Matthew Gwaltney, Caitlin Hammaren, Jeremy Herbstritt, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Emily Hilscher, Jarrett Lane, Matthew La Porte, Henry Lee, Liviu Librescu, G.V. Loganathan, Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, Lauren McCain, Daniel O'Neil, Juan Ramon Ortiz-Ortiz, Minal Panchal, Erin Peterson, Michael Pohle, Julia Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Samaha, Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, Leslie Sherman, Maxine Turner, and Nichole White.

I read those names to honor those who were killed and had their lives snuffed out on April 16, 2007. I acknowledge also that many students and faculty members were injured. We have with us today both family members of those who are deceased and even some students who were injured. I also honor all in the Hokie, the Virginia Tech community that is very close, that still suffers the wounds from this horrible shooting.

In the aftermath of the shooting at Virginia Tech 6 years ago today, we learned a lot. We learned that we have

to make fixes to the mental health system: that school security and safety is incredibly important, that alert systems that can notify people when bad things happen are incredibly important. We also learned a tragic but important lesson; that is, background record checks make us safer. The young, troubled individual with no criminal record who committed those horrible crimes had a long history of mental illness. He had been adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous. Because of that adjudication, he was not supposed to be able to own or purchase weapons, but a flaw in the background record check system kept that record from being entered into the national database. So when he decided and went to purchase the weapons he used in committing this horrible homicide, he was allowed to purchase them.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, with the strong support of the Virginia Tech families, we fixed that problem in the background record check. As Governor, I worked with my Republican attorney general, the current Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell. We fixed the background record check system that facilitated this gruesome crime. Background records checks make us safer. The better the system, the safer we are.

I later went to my legislature and tried to get them to fix the background record check in another way--by closing the gun show loophole, to require records checks at gun shows. I failed in that task. I not only could not convince my legislature to do it, I could not even convince a single committee to report a bill out to the floor.

That is why I am so glad we are debating on the floor meaningful fixes to gun violence, including a fix to our background record check system when it comes to gun shows or online purchases. I look forward to the debate, and I look forward to supporting the proposals that have been advanced by Senators Manchin and Toomey.

I read the names, the 32 names of those who were killed. As I conclude, I wish to take a couple of minutes to tell the story of one of the individuals.

I read the name of Liviu Librescu, who was a professor at Virginia Tech, a professor of engineering. He was teaching a course in Norris Hall on the day of this horrible tragedy, and as shots rang out, he heard the shots. He went to the door, and he barricaded the door with his own body, and on the second floor of Norris Hall, he told his students to get out of the window and get to the ground and get to safety. He stood there against the door as Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter, fired repeated rounds through the door, striking his body many times and eventually killing him. But not until the last shot when he was killed did he stop saying to the students: Hurry. You have time. You can get out of the window. And all but one of Liviu Librescu's students were able to get out of the window. One student, Minal Panchal, ended up being killed because he bravely waited for the other students to go out the window first.

What heroism and bravery. Yet the Liviu Librescu story is even more powerful than that because Liviu Librescu, the professor, was 76 years old--long past retirement age. He had continued to teach because he loved teaching.

He was born in 1930 in Romania. When the Romanian Government became allied with Nazi Germany in 1940, because he was Jewish and his family was Jewish, he was subjected to the persecution Jews in Romania were subjected to, his family was sent into forced labor camps, and Liviu Librescu lived in a crowded ghetto in a Romanian city, being persecuted, but he came through the Holocaust as a survivor. Many Jews, after the war, left Romania because of the persecution of Jews, but it was Liviu Librescu's home, and he stayed. He went to a university, and he became a world-renowned aerospace engineer, and he continued to teach.

But now Romania fell under the influence, as a puppet state, of the Soviet Union. He would not pledge allegiance to the Communist Party. He would not relinquish his tie to his Judaic faith. Because of that, he began to be subjected to persecution for a second time, to be persecuted because of his religion, to be denied the ability to publish articles or travel to academic conferences. Eventually, he lost his job at the university because of his Judaism and because he was unwilling to take the oath of allegiance to the Communist Party.

He was persona non grata in his home country of Romania. However, people in the outside world who knew of his scholarship never let go, and they continued to speak on Liviu Librescu's behalf. He was eventually allowed, in 1977, to emigrate to Israel.

He lived in Israel for 8 years and received a 1-year teaching fellowship at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. He came for 1 year and never left. He taught as a popular teacher and researcher in Blacksburg, VA, from 1985 until the day he was killed in 2007.

This horrible day, April 16, 2007, started as a normal Monday for virtually everyone who ended up sharing the tragic fate. It was not a normal day. It did not start as a normal day for Liviu Librescu. Liviu Librescu, as a proud Jew, observed that day, from sundown on the 15th of April, the evening before, until sundown on the 16th of April, as Yom HaShoah, Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Day.

Yom HaShoah, in the Jewish religion since 1953, has been a day worldwide where Jews and their allies remember the Holocaust, perpetrators, victims, and the bystanders--the bystanders who wouldn't do anything to stop the atrocity.

They also remember the heroism of those who fought against the Holocaust.

As Professor Librescu went to his class on this day, while it was a normal Monday for most, I know he walked into his class thinking about Yom HaShoah, perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and heroes. He made a decision, in the split second he heard shots being fired, to be a hero and to save others' lives.

He survived the Holocaust, perpetrated by Nazi Germany, and anti- Semitism in Romania. He survived the persecution perpetrated in his country by the Soviet Union. However, Liviu Librescu could not survive the epidemic of gun violence in this country, the country which he adopted and loved.

In conclusion, I would encourage all of us to take a minute, Senators, staff, pages, people in the gallery, members of the press, take a moment and ask yourselves would you do what Liviu Librescu did. Would you put your body against a door, allow yourself to be shot, and encourage others to be safe? Would you do that? Would we do this?

As I thought about this question, being honest, I would say I hope I would do that. I pray if it comes to that I would act to protect others ahead of myself.

If I am honest with myself, what I have to say is I don't know whether I would do that. I don't know whether I would be a hero like Liviu Librescu. I don't know if I would have the courage to do what Liviu Librescu did.

The good news for those of us who have the honor and blessing to serve in this Chamber is we do not need to put our body in front of bullets to keep people safe. We do not need to put our bodies in front of bullets to protect kids and protect students. All we need to do is have an infinitesimal portion of the courage Liviu Librescu had and cast votes. We need to cast votes on the floor of this body to keep our community safer and to keep our children safer.

I have heard it said this will be a hard vote. For 20 years there has not been a meaningful discussion of these issues on the floor of the Senate because interests are too powerful, the NRA is too powerful. It will be a vote which will be scored, and we need to worry about it. It will take courage. It does not take courage, to any degree, when we think about Liviu Librescu, who saved his students.

Last week I met the daughter of Mary Sherlach, who was the guidance counselor in Sandy Hook who ran to save her students and was killed. When we think about the courage and heroism shown by these individuals, what we are being asked to do on the floor of this body is the least we can do.

It is about heroism. We honor heroes such as Liviu Librescu. The people who put us in office expect us to have at least a small measure of courage, a small measure of heroism. We owe it to those students and others who were shot, killed, and wounded at Virginia Tech. We owe it to the people who were killed or wounded in Newtown. I would ask all my colleagues to reflect upon

the example of Professor Librescu and the heroism he showed as we debate what might be a controversial proposal this week.

Again, the blessing we have as Senators is that we do not have to interpose our bodies in the way of violence to make a difference and make people safer. It is my wish we do that as we debate and vote in the coming days.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be recognized for up to 5 minutes as if in morning business and then Senator Lee be recognized for up to 5 minutes following my remarks.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Kaine pertaining to the introduction of S. 700 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce my first bill as a US Senator. It has been delivered to the desk. The bill is the Troop Talent Act of 2013. I am pleased to note it is cosponsored by Senator Saxby Chambliss and Senator Max Baucus.

The bill begins with a problem which I know concerns all Americans, the unemployment rate of our veterans. Currently, the national unemployment rate average is 7.6 percent, but the unemployment rate for veterans is 9.4 percent. That unemployment rate is particularly acute for veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We can't be comfortable if we see the statistic that our veterans have a higher unemployment rate than the national average. It should be otherwise.

In Virginia, where one in nine of our citizens, one in nine of our 8 million citizens from birth to death is a veteran, this is a particularly acute challenge. Frankly, it is only going to get worse as more and more people exit military service in the drawdown from Afghanistan.

What is the reason for the veterans' unemployment rate being higher than the national average? Some of the reasons have to do with medical challenges and issues which are in the province of the VA. I learned of another reason as I was campaigning across the State for 19 months. I heard stories from veterans, and they would say the following: I was in the military. I was a battlefield medic. I got out of the military and tried to get a job as a physician's assistant or a nurse, and I was told I had no credit for all my military service as I tried to transition into the civilian world.

Another stated: I maintained Naval aviation engines for 20 years. Then when I finished and tried to do the same thing on the civilian side, I was told I had to go back and start as if I had no experience.

Another: I operated heavy equipment, but I was told I would need a commercial driver's license.

Many of the members of our military--all of them are gaining skills along the way, but they go into a civilian workforce where their skills and talents are not recognized. In some ways this is a feature of an all-volunteer military. When we had a draft and men were compelled to serve, someone departing military service would go into the workforce and say they were a gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps or an E-5 in the Navy, and someone in the workforce would know what it was they had done.

Today only 1 percent of our adults serve in the military. We appreciate what our military members do, but we don't understand their technical skills or their leadership talent.

This is the genesis for the Troop Talent Act of 2013. It is to make sure military members, while they are active, are getting recognized, credentialed credit for the skills they obtain, which will help them get immediate traction back into the civilian workforce.

The True Talent Act has three pillars: The first is the credentialing of military members for the skills they have obtained and the sharing of information between the military branches about the skills they have with servicemembers, the private sector, and with agencies who would credential them with a civilian credential. This is the first pillar, credentialing people for the skills people obtain.

The second pillar is a bit of a policing function. Sometimes folks will prey upon people leaving the military and say: Pay me $500, and I will administer a test which will give you a credential. Then it turns out their credential is worthless.

The VA had a working committee to police these credential-granting agencies to ensure no one was being ripped off. That committee no longer is in service. This bill would restart it.

Finally, the last thing this bill would do would be to take one particular industry sector, information technology, where there is a huge need to hire people and where our military members have significant skills, and this will accelerate credentialing traction for those members back into the military workforce.

There is a current pilot project DOD is working on with certain specialties but not IT. This would seek to expand the pilot programs to add IT to the list where people are credentialed.

In conclusion, this is about doing what the Nation should do for our servicemembers and making sure they receive the traction they deserve for the service they provided. It is not just about the members themselves, it is also about us. We have invested in our service men and women. They have skills, technical and leadership skills, which would help our society be more successful. To the extent we do not allow them traction back in the civilian life, we are not only depriving them, we are depriving ourselves of their strengths and talents.

I am pleased to introduce this bill and honored to have Senators Baucus and Chambliss as cosponsors.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce my first bill as a US Senator. It has been delivered to the desk. The bill is the Troop Talent Act of 2013. I am pleased to note it is cosponsored by Senator Saxby Chambliss and Senator Max Baucus.

The bill begins with a problem which I know concerns all Americans, the unemployment rate of our veterans. Currently, the national unemployment rate average is 7.6 percent, but the unemployment rate for veterans is 9.4 percent. That unemployment rate is particularly acute for veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We can't be comfortable if we see the statistic that our veterans have a higher unemployment rate than the national average. It should be otherwise.

In Virginia, where one in nine of our citizens, one in nine of our 8 million citizens from birth to death is a veteran, this is a particularly acute challenge. Frankly, it is only going to get worse as more and more people exit military service in the drawdown from Afghanistan.

What is the reason for the veterans' unemployment rate being higher than the national average? Some of the reasons have to do with medical challenges and issues which are in the province of the VA. I learned of another reason as I was campaigning across the State for 19 months. I heard stories from veterans, and they would say the following: I was in the military. I was a battlefield medic. I got out of the military and tried to get a job as a physician's assistant or a nurse, and I was told I had no credit for all my military service as I tried to transition into the civilian world.

Another stated: I maintained Naval aviation engines for 20 years. Then when I finished and tried to do the same thing on the civilian side, I was told I had to go back and start as if I had no experience.

Another: I operated heavy equipment, but I was told I would need a commercial driver's license.

Many of the members of our military--all of them are gaining skills along the way, but they go into a civilian workforce where their skills and talents are not recognized. In some ways this is a feature of an all-volunteer military. When we had a draft and men were compelled to serve, someone departing military service would go into the workforce and say they were a gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps or an E-5 in the Navy, and someone in the workforce would know what it was they had done.

Today only 1 percent of our adults serve in the military. We appreciate what our military members do, but we don't understand their technical skills or their leadership talent.

This is the genesis for the Troop Talent Act of 2013. It is to make sure military members, while they are active, are getting recognized, credentialed credit for the skills they obtain, which will help them get immediate traction back into the civilian workforce.

The True Talent Act has three pillars: The first is the credentialing of military members for the skills they have obtained and the sharing of information between the military branches about the skills they have with servicemembers, the private sector, and with agencies who would credential them with a civilian credential. This is the first pillar, credentialing people for the skills people obtain.

The second pillar is a bit of a policing function. Sometimes folks will prey upon people leaving the military and say: Pay me $500, and I will administer a test which will give you a credential. Then it turns out their credential is worthless.

The VA had a working committee to police these credential-granting agencies to ensure no one was being ripped off. That committee no longer is in service. This bill would restart it.

Finally, the last thing this bill would do would be to take one particular industry sector, information technology, where there is a huge need to hire people and where our military members have significant skills, and this will accelerate credentialing traction for those members back into the military workforce.

There is a current pilot project DOD is working on with certain specialties but not IT. This would seek to expand the pilot programs to add IT to the list where people are credentialed.

In conclusion, this is about doing what the Nation should do for our servicemembers and making sure they receive the traction they deserve for the service they provided. It is not just about the members themselves, it is also about us. We have invested in our service men and women. They have skills, technical and leadership skills, which would help our society be more successful. To the extent we do not allow them traction back in the civilian life, we are not only depriving them, we are depriving ourselves of their strengths and talents.

I am pleased to introduce this bill and honored to have Senators Baucus and Chambliss as cosponsors.

Mr. President, I would be happy to address that question from my senior Senator and good friend, Mr. Warner. As he indicated-- and I think I can maybe say it a little bit more strongly than he could because he would be a little bit modest. I know of many people in this body who have great experience in governance, great experience in the business sector. I do not know of anyone who has worked harder on issues of fiscal responsibility and who has a greater track record in the business world of understanding what true fiscal responsibility is than my colleague Senator Warner, and I am glad to engage in this colloquy with him.

I also want to thank our chairwoman, Senator Murray, for a job well done in helping shepherd this budget through committee to the floor. This debate, both in committee and here on the floor, that will take place in the next few days will illuminate important choices we need to make as a nation and will illuminate important differences between the Senate's approach and the House's approach.

I echo comments Senator Warner made. This Senate budget is a compromise, like all are, and there will be more compromise that should take place in any normal process. But the budget does a very good job in a number of ways. It tackles the task, the challenging task of deficit reduction to get us to figures that would be very much the equivalent of what had been recommended in the Simpson-Bowles report, as Senator Warner indicated. It focuses upon economic growth, a growth agenda, which is the most important thing we need to be focused on in this body, and it does it in a balanced way that incorporates real savings and also appropriate reform of revenues.

It is impossible to fix a balance sheet by just focusing on one side of the balance sheet. Business leaders know this. Governors know this. Everyday Americans know this. I commend Chairwoman Murray and the other members of the committee, and I echo the comments made by my colleague, Senator Warner, about the budget having the critical components.

I feel very confident, if this budget were enacted as is with no change to an apostrophe, comma, or a line item, this budget would be a positive result for the American economy. It would promote growth, and it would find us continuing on a path to responsible deficit reduction to reach the levels of debt, deficit, or GDP which are appropriate from economic terms.

I would not say the same about the House budget. If it were enacted without a change, comma, or apostrophe, it would not be a positive thing for the American economy--it could be somewhat catastrophic or cataclysmic for the economy.

To get to the question, my senior Senator and friend has asked me about the effects of sequester in Virginia. As some of you might know, I took the floor for my maiden speech on this topic last month--a little bit earlier than I would have wished to have spoken as a freshman Senator. With the spectre of the sequester having such a significant effect on the Commonwealth of Virginia, I felt I couldn't be silent on it. A Senator colleague from Hawaii is here, Senator Hirono, who I know feels equally strongly about this issue.

I took a tour throughout Virginia in the middle of February, which was designed as sequester was looming. We spoke to people who were affected, especially in the armed services area. I heard their stories about the sequester and the anxieties and threats it posed. Beginning in early April, 90,000 DOD civilian employees will begin to be furloughed in the Commonwealth of Virginia, hundreds of thousands nationally. This will have a very significant effect on the kitchen table, family pocketbook discussions which are happening all over the Commonwealth. This will be a very significant change to the individuals and the lives of their communities.

I yield to the Senator.

Absolutely. I am pleased the Senator brought this up. When folks are furloughed and they see their pay reduced, they will spend less at the drycleaner and less at the restaurant. They will delay the purchase of the automobile they planned for this year. They will be doing all kinds of things to tighten their spending. This will affect shopkeepers and merchants in their area.

When I was Governor, early in my term Ford decided to close a plant in Norfolk with a couple of thousand workers. The ripple effect of that was felt throughout the economy, a couple of thousand workers, was very significant. To take 90,000 civilian DOD employees in a State such as Virginia, heavily concentrated in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads and furlough them and reduce their salaries will be felt throughout the economy. These civilian furloughs are one of the many effects of sequester.

Sometimes when people hear about furloughs of Department of Defense civilian employees, they might think it is someone sitting in an office. Who knows what they are doing? You need to think about who these people are. I visited Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, one of the premier facilities in the United States which treats wounded warriors, the people who have sacrificed so much for this Nation. When I was dialoguing with a wounded warrior and his wife at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, they raised sequester. I thought they were raising sequester about something about their veterans' benefits. No. Instead, what they wanted to know is, My nurse is a DOD civilian and my physical therapist is a DOD civilian. Are the people we are asking to care for those who have borne the scars of battle--are they going to have reduced care because of this sequester? This is who these DOD civilian employees are, doing wonderful work, such as the nurses at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital.

Outside of the DOD civilian space, let's move into the private sector world. On this tour I went to the Newport News Shipyard. Senator Warner and I were there last Saturday for a wonderful occasion honoring former Senator John Warner. This is a shipyard we in Virginia are proud of and proud of nationally. It is a great story. We manufacture the largest and most sophisticated items manufactured on the planet Earth in the Commonwealth of Virginia, nuclear aircraft carriers. They are manufactured and refurbished in Newport News at this shipyard. It is a very special technical expertise, the construction and refurbishing of these aircraft carriers. They are heel-to-toe for months. Then one leaves and the next one comes in. If you get out of line or delay, everything becomes backed up. The result is your shipping fleet isn't ready or as operational as it should be.

There was a pier, a drydock, filled in because the Truman was supposed to be coming in for a new refurbishment. It was stopped and sitting across the water in Newport. They couldn't start work because of sequester and uncertainty about the CR.

Many other shipyards in the Hampton Roads area, private, small ship repairs but without the financial muscle of a Huntington Ingalls of Newport News Shipyard, have issued warn notices to lay off employees because the Navy indicated in quarters three and four they would need to scale back on repairs. These were some of the effects they were seeing.

I went to a National Guard armory in Stanton, which was very interesting. I

learned the National Guard in Stanton is called the Stonewall Brigade. Their first activity on behalf of the defense of the Nation occurred 20 years before the French and Indian wars. The Stonewall Brigade in Stanton began in 1740 defending the Nation, and they were talking to me about sequester.

How does sequester affect the Guard in Virginia, the Stonewall Brigade? It affects their ability to train their people. A whole series of training exercises planned for the next months or years is now jeopardized. They will not be able to train.

The commander of the brigade said, My people will do anything, but I would rather have them take on the tasks and the challenge knowing they are 100 percent trained and ready, rather than 85 or 90 percent trained and ready. This is an important responsibility we have to those men and women who sign up to be guardsmen in Virginia. Once again, whether it was our DOD civilians, ship repairers, wounded warriors, or guards men and women, you see these immediate effects sequester has in Virginia.

Of all the effects I have mentioned, I will say there was only one which made goosebumps come up on my arm. They were all of concern to me, but there was one which really made me stop and think. I went to visit an ROTC unit at the University of Virginia, which combined students from Navy, Army, and Air Force ROTC programs at UVA, to sit with me and speak about their career path. They spoke about their love for their country, their patriotism and willingness to sacrifice and put themselves in harm's way for their country.

One of them basically said this: I am willing to sign up voluntarily for a career path which will put me in harm's way--because I know it is a dangerous world. But as I am making a decision about my career, I hadn't really factored in the notion, Is my civilian political leadership willing to support me? When I watch Congress indiscriminately cutting budgets and doing an across-the-board cut to the military of the size sequester suggests, I need to ask myself--I will put myself in harm's ways, face bullets, danger, and the likelihood I could be a wounded warrior and a vet in a bed at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital once in my life. Do I want to face the risk a Congress might impose these types of cuts which are so nonstrategic and thereby send a signal to me what we are doing isn't that valuable?

This was chilling to me. This is the message we send, whether it be the ship welders who could be ship repairers or go somewhere else or bright and talented college students who could be military officers or do something else. When we send a signal from this place, people pay attention. If the signal we send is we have a wavering commitment and are willing to do nonstrategic across-the-board cuts, it is not only affecting today but it could potentially have an effect down the road.

There is an answer to this, a solution. What I heard repeatedly on the trail from Virginians of all political parties is fix this, make a deal, find a compromise, listen to the other side. No one said to me fix this; fix my problem by taking more money away from someone else. I didn't have the warriors say: Fix our defense cuts by cutting Head Start or by cutting other priorities more.

They said go find the kind of balanced approach which would involve cuts and savings, and we all know how to do them. This would also involve the kinds of revenues we need to find a balance to this problem.

The other good thing is we can fix this. In fact, we tried to fix it. There was a bill on the floor here which replaced the first year of these sequester cuts with a balanced mixture of revenues and expenditures. The bill was on the floor for vote, and it received enough to pass. It received more than 50 votes and more than a majority of this body. This is a way of saying we do not want there to be these nonstrategic sequester cuts. Because of the decision to filibuster, to require it to reach not a majority but 60 votes, the will of the majority in this body to turn off sequester for the first year and find a balanced replacement package was thwarted. We have another opportunity in this budget.

I will say one more thing, and then I will throw it back to the Senator with a question. We have before us a sequester alternative in the fiscal year 2014 budget we are debating. The budget includes a path of deficit reduction which is balanced and is both expense cuts and revenues. It also does something very particular with respect to sequester. It replaces blunt across-the-board nonstrategic cuts with targeted and strategic cuts of a lesser magnitude, because we are adding in revenues as well. It also times the cuts so they are not straight across-the-board equal for 10 years but a little more focused on the back end of the 10-year period to help the economy. Signs indicate the stock market, housing market, auto sales, and consumer confidence is picking up.

What this budget does with the sequester is it finds savings but reduces the deficit of savings. It makes them targeted and strategic, rather than blunt and across the board. It times them in a way which is more conducive to economic growth. This, as one of the many features of this budget, is the better approach to sequester than the one we are currently living under.

I wish to ask the Senator a question. After attending the Budget Committee hearings with me and hearing the debate on the floor thus far about the budget, I have to say I have been a little surprised to hear some of my colleagues. They argue: No, we shouldn't replace sequester. The sequester should go forward. The sequester is a good thing.

I heard this argued in committee. There was opposition to the notion of doing something better than sequester. It was sort of expressed as we said we were going to do the sequester cuts and we need to do them. I have heard it said on the floor, even in the course of the debate since yesterday. Under any circumstances, as somebody who has created and run businesses, who ran a State government and received fiscal accolades for doing it the right way, if we have a reasonable fix, is there any justification for continuing with blunt across-the-board sequester cuts which do not take into account the priority of any of the line items and do not take into account the performance data about whether any of those line items are affected? I would like to hear the Senator address that question.

I know our colleague from Hawaii is also anxious to tell us about sequester effects in her State.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Warner.

I do want to pick up on one of the last points he made, which is the balanced way of getting to where we all want to go. We want to have a growing economy with a lowering unemployment rate. We want to deal with our deficit. These are challenging, complex goals that are not easy, but we can get there. Even the action of this body last night in passing the fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill and fix shows we can cooperate together and with the House get there. It is my hope that will inspire us going forward.

The question is this: All agree that what has been done thus far in the area of deficit reduction equates to about $2.4 trillion of deficit reduction that has been done by the last Congress, including the deal on the Bush tax cuts that were made at yearend, $2.4 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10 years. And all in looking at that deficit reduction also agree that $1.85 trillion of the deficit reduction was cutting expenses and a little bit more than $600 billion of it was revenues that were achieved through the yearend Bush tax cuts deal. So overwhelmingly what has been done thus far has been in spending cuts rather than new revenues. It is very important for us to know that. It is very important for folks to realize that Democrats are willing to make hard calls about spending, and we have done it already.

But the question before this body and the question before the House now is, going forward, what do we do to achieve additional deficit reduction that is consistent with having a growing economy? The approaches of the Senate and the House on this could not be more different.

The House approach basically says all additional deficit reduction should be achieved by cutting spending, by looking at one side of the balance sheet. I do not know of a business, I do not know of a family, I do not know of other units of government that, as they are trying to wrestle with this question, confine themselves only looking at one side of the balance sheet. But that is what the House budget does.

I was thinking about this approach and this question about deficits not long ago, and it struck me that when I look at myself in a mirror, I always wish I was thinner, but I have never once looked in a mirror and wished I was weaker. An all-cuts approach is like looking in a mirror and wishing you were weaker because an all-cuts approach makes you weaker. It makes you weaker in defense, it makes you weaker in education, it makes you weaker in infrastructure.

By laying people off in jobs, it makes you weaker because your unemployment rate is higher. An all-cuts approach is like looking in the mirror and wishing you were weaker.

I don't want to be weaker. I don't want this Nation to be weaker. We have to be stronger. Can we make cuts? Sure, we can. We have, and we will make more. But we ought to be focused on being stronger, about growing the economy and growing jobs.

That is why the approach the Senate takes is the right approach; because by utilizing revenues appropriately, reforming tax expenditures to reduce them on the equivalent of about 7 or 8 percent a year, these myriad of tax expenditures in the Tax Code, we are able to find investments in infrastructure and soften the indiscriminate cuts that are leading to the job losses that my friend from Hawaii described.

The Senate budget, in achieving additional deficit reduction, is a balanced approach that will make us stronger, not weaker. That is why it is my great hope that we will pass this in a significant way.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the work Chairwoman Mikulski and Ranking Member Shelby and the Appropriations Committee have done and the place they will bring us to on the floor of the Senate this week as we take an important step forward to fix the fiscal year 2013 budget. I will be meeting tomorrow--as many legislators do during the course of the year--with my Governor. All of the Virginia delegation will be sitting down with Governor McDonnell, who will be visiting, and he and the State will view this as very good news as we can talk about this work product.

I made my first speech on the floor about 2 weeks ago, and it was a speech that was kind of a plea. It was a plea to avoid the economic self-inflicted wound of sequester. As we all know, we were not able to do that at the time. There were two bills, and neither of them was able to get sufficient votes to move forward. The negative consequences from that sequester have been felt in the Commonwealth, as I traveled around, whether it is warn notices to ship repairers in the Hampton Roads area, planned furloughs of DOD civilian employees, or a delay in a carrier deployment that could potentially leave us more vulnerable in the Middle East.

The good news is that we can fix it and improve it. The Appropriations Committee's work discussed today is a way to begin to do that. We have a chance to get it right and to reduce the negative effects of sequester by dealing effectively with the expiring CR for fiscal year 2013 and then producing a progrowth 2014 budget. This is the work before this body in the next few weeks, and we need to do our very best work.

On the continuing resolution, it has been made clear in the comments before, we do not have a fiscal year 2013 budget or appropriations bills at the current time, so since October, we have been operating out of 2012 appropriations bills, pushed forward for a few months at a time. This leads us to a situation where we are not forward-focused, but we are operating out of an old playbook. We need to align our spending around this year's priorities and not be locked into funding the priorities of the past.

The Department of Defense--just to focus on this for a minute because defense is critical to the Commonwealth, as it is to all States--is very constrained by the continuing resolution that is currently in place. There is a $11 billion operations and maintenance shortfall that is difficult for DOD to manage in a way that will keep us safe. There is a lack of flexibility to adjust to new needs. There are no new starts on important projects, including on the shipbuilding and naval side, which is so important to the Commonwealth. That has already led to a delay in the construction of one of the new Ford class aircraft carriers, the USS John F. Kennedy, with a consequent potential loss in jobs. Other agencies throughout the Federal Government have been similarly affected.

The good news is that there is a solution. Chairwoman Mikulski and Senator Shelby, the ranking member, have worked together to lay that out today. This week we will work together on a true appropriations bill for the remainder of fiscal year 2013 for critical government functions: Department of Defense, military construction, the VA, but also homeland security, agriculture, commerce-justice- science. There are other governmental functions that will continue to operate under the fiscal year 2013 CR, but in many areas we will not be working off a backward-looking document. For the remainder of the year at least, because of the work of this committee, we can look at a forward-looking document.

Again, I congratulate Chairwoman Mikulski and Ranking Member Shelby and the Appropriations Committee for working so hard together with House colleagues to put us in this posture. A true appropriations approach to the remainder of fiscal year 2013 fixes many of the DOD problems I outlined earlier. For example, it will allow us to go forward on the shipbuilding contract to construct a second Ford class carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy. That will be wonderful news for our defense and wonderful news for the shipyard that is the largest private employer in Virginia. It will allow us to move forward on significant ship refurbishment and repair contracts. The repair and refueling of the USS Roosevelt and the USS Lincoln were delayed as a result of the uncertainty about the budget, but the work this committee is doing will enable us to move forward.

We will be able to not completely eliminate the operations and maintenance deficits but at least make moves

among those accounts to mitigate the effects of the O&M deficit, and that will be across service branches.

Just last Friday, as I left the Senate and drove back to my home in Richmond, I stopped and did an economic development tour with a contractor in the Fredericksburg area working on robotics projects for all of the service branches. They talked about the fact that the CR was really putting a crimp in their planned expansions, their ability to hire students who are graduating from engineering programs around Virginia and around the Nation this fall. The CR fix going forward will give this company and so many others some certainty that will enable them to do the work we need to do and also help expand employment.

Other agencies have a similar upside from the fix of this fiscal year 2013 CR, as Chairwoman Mikulski was just outlining--improvements in domestic nutrition; improvements in international food aid, which is not only good for the most vulnerable people in the world but also good for the American farmer; improvements in State and local law enforcement support, immigration enforcement, workforce training, early childhood education. There are many aspects of this fix going forward that are far preferable to the CR and certainly preferable to flirting around the possibility of any kind of a shutdown after March 27. That is why I strongly support the approach the Appropriations Committee, under its leadership, has worked on. It is good for the United States and good for Virginia, and it represents a move to forward-looking budgeting rather than plays out of last year's playbook.

Make no mistake, the sequester is still in place, and the sequester is still having significant effects. The fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill we are discussing will mitigate the effects, but there will still be an operations and maintenance shortfall within DOD. Every service is still facing potential cuts in training and other readiness functions that should cause us concern.

Last Monday, a week ago yesterday, I went to the Pentagon and visited with Secretary Hagel, Deputy Secretary Carter, General Odierno, spent time with General Welsh last week, and not just with the brass but then went down into the cafeteria and heard the real deal from folks who were having lunch, and these were Active Duty assigned to the Pentagon, DOD civilian, Guard men and women who were back just coincidently to do training-related meetings that day, and veterans who were back having lunch with their friends. As I went table to table and talked about sequester, I heard about continuing effects and concerns regarding the furlough of defense civilians and potential cuts to contractors. So those are still out there, but the good news is that this bill will address and improve, and then we have a second chance to do so as well as we begin in short order to deal with a proposed fiscal year 2013 budget.

There is a strong budget process already underway that will bear fruit in the committee within the next couple of days. The Budget Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Murray, has worked very hard, and it started the process that will lead to committee discussion and voting and then amendment and debate later this week. The basic goal of what we are trying to do is pretty simple, under the chairman's direction: Let's grow the economy and create jobs while reducing our deficit and debt in an economically credible way.

If we do this right, together with the appropriations approach discussed today, we can help reduce and then shape the negative effect that sequester has had on the Commonwealth and the country by replacing a blunt, nonstrategic, across-the-board set of cuts with more strategic and targeted approaches.

We have a long way to go, obviously, whether it is on finding the path forward just on this bill--and it looks as if there is very strong bipartisan support, and that is positive--but certainly on moving forward with the budget and the possibility of finding some compromise with the House. There are going to be vast differences in the approaches, and we cannot sugarcoat that. But I think it is maybe important at least to stop and acknowledge some positive steps.

At year end, before I joined the body, the two Houses did come together and they found a compromise on the Bush tax cuts, which was positive. There were things not to like about it, but the fact of compromise was a positive. The House agreed earlier in calendar year 2013 that they would not use the debt ceiling as leverage over the American economy or leverage over these discussions. That, in an earlier instance, led to America's credit being downgraded, so stepping away from that is positive. In the Senate, we are returning to normal budgetary order under normal timing, and that is a positive step. Both sides have agreed to avoid brinkmanship surrounding government shutdown on March 27 and have worked assiduously to avoid it. This compromise to the fiscal year 2013 CR and the willingness to move forward in a true appropriations approach for the rest of the year in these key government functions is so positive. And the prospects, which I think are very good, of both Houses actually producing budgets on time for the first time in a number of years is also positive.

So while there are real and significant differences, and we will lay those on the table and debate them with vigor over the next few days and weeks, the American public will see this process unfold. They expect us to debate, listen, and find reasonable compromises. We have seen some, just in the last few days--I guess I will conclude and say this: We have seen some recent positive economic news--the jobs report Friday, some of the news about housing, the stock market. There are some positive economic trends that are starting to develop. Congress can accelerate these trends. Congress can accelerate the improvement of the American economy if we keep taking these reasonable steps forward to find a responsible budgetary path. This work on the CR bill to find an appropriations path for the remainder of the year is one of those positive steps, and I applaud the committee leadership for doing so.

I yield the floor.

I yield.

Absolutely. I am just coming from an armed services hearing, I say to Senator Mikulski, where we were talking about that very same thing. The armed services mission, of course, requires that we protect the men and women in uniform. But so many of the DOD civilians are absolutely critical in doing their appropriate jobs. Sixty percent of the staff, for example, our strategic men, STRATCOM, are civilian employees. They are doing some of the most important work that we need done in the country right now around cyber security. The nurses who care for the wounded warriors I visited at Fort Belvoir Hospital, for example, are DOD civilians. So the furloughs that affect, more broadly, the civilian employees should be reason for significant concern.

Again, we are taking a positive step toward addressing some of these issues by embracing the appropriations approach that the Senator has worked on, and we will have an additional ability to take a positive step with respect to the fiscal year 2014 budget.

I say to the Senator, it is impossible----

It is like the old commercial about the price of various things but some things are priceless. There is no way to estimate it. Just off the top of my head, there have been analyses of the degree to which the Federal budget impacts the economy in each State, and the most recent, done by Bloomberg about 16 months ago, had Virginia as the State most affected by the Federal budget. So the prospect of more brinkmanship around shutdown, which has happened in the past, even if it does not occur, creates great anxiety. But if it were to occur, whether it is the nurses caring for our wounded warriors, whether it is the researchers helping us to figure out how to stay ahead of the cyber attacks that are frankly happening to our Nation every day, or whether it is the shipyard repairers at Newport News Shipyard who manufacture the largest in manufactured items in the world, nuclear aircraft carriers, which should be a story of American pride, who would find their jobs at risk--a shutdown and even the negative consequences of playing out of last year's CR, which is backward-looking rather than forward-looking, are significant. And that is why turning and facing forward is the approach we should take.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business and that the time count against the nomination.

Madam President, it is an honor to stand here for my first speech on the Senate floor. I am honored to be part of this body and to speak where hundreds have spoken before and thousands will speak after me.

A normal first speech for a Senator is usually a proactive, forward- looking speech. We are not in normal times. A normal first speech for a Senator usually happens much later, after a Senator has been around for a number of months. We are not in normal times. A normal first speech for a Senator is often in connection with the introduction of a piece of legislation. We are not in normal times. So I am speaking a bit earlier than I would have thought likely when I took the oath of office on January 3, but I am speaking in particular because we are not in normal times, and the abnormality of the times has a huge effect on the Commonwealth I am proud to represent.

In the summer of 2011 Congress passed a bill we are now talking about, a bill dealing with the sequestration cuts of the Federal Government.

There is no precedent I am aware of in congressional history for what is about to happen in 48 hours.

Congress designed a set of punishing, nonstrategic, ugly cuts designed to hurt the economy and hurt individuals and all--however they voted on that bill--did not want these cuts to come into place. So those who voted for the package in the summer of 2011 did not want the sequester cuts to occur and believed we would find, through compromise, an alternative; and those who voted against the package in the summer of 2011 largely voted against it because they did not want these cuts to occur.

So the abnormality of the times is this: Never, to my knowledge, in the history of this body, has Congress designed a punishment that would hurt the lives of regular individuals and that would hurt the economy. It was designed with that knowledge, fully. All hoped it would not happen. Yet we are within 48 hours of allowing it to happen.

The effects this sequester will have on the country and the effects it will have on my Commonwealth are so significant and severe that I do feel compelled to speak a little earlier than I otherwise might have. I would also add I think the effects of these cuts on this institution and the credibility of this institution are equally severe.

What I wish to do in this speech is basically a couple things. I want to talk about the effect of these sequester cuts, if they happen, on regular people. I just returned from a tour around my State and I am just going to share some stories. I want to talk, with some data, about the short-term impacts of these cuts on the broader economy. Third, I want to talk about some long-term impacts, some impacts we are not necessarily thinking of right now but should cause us significant concern. Fourth, there is a way to avoid this, and I want to talk about how we can avoid allowing this self-inflicted wound to occur. Finally, I want to talk about the fact that there is an upside in this moment for us. This is not just about avoiding harming people, hurting the economy. It is not just about avoiding negatives. I think there is an upside for us and for this institution and for this Nation if we do this right.

Let me begin with my tour around Virginia. I am now a brandnew member of the Armed Services Committee, and I sit in a wonderful seat following John Warner, who was there for 30 years, and

Jim Webb, who was there before me. I am no replacement for either of those individuals and I have big shoes to fill. So I decided to take a tour around my State last week and visit the various touch points in the Commonwealth where we interact with our military and our national security.

The map of Virginia is a map of the military history of this country: Yorktown, where the Revolutionary War ended; Appomattox, where the Civil War ended; the Pentagon, where we were attacked on 9/11. We are the most connected State to the military. One in eight Virginians is a veteran--not one in eight adults, one in eight Virginians, from birth to death. Over 100,000 Active-Duty Guard and Reserve, DOD civilians, DOD contractors. By the time we add up all of those and their families and military families, we are probably talking about one in three Virginians.

I went to the places where Virginians work every day, as ship repairers in private shipyards, as Active Duty on naval bases, as DOD civilians working as nurses in Army hospitals, as young officer candidates training in ROTC programs, at VA hospitals. I went around the State, and let me tell you what I heard.

A few miles from here is Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, one of the preeminent institutions that treats wounded warriors. A wounded warrior still on Active service being treated there, his wife sitting right next to him, we talked, and she ventured this: Let's talk about these furloughs of these DOD civilian employees. My husband's nurses are all DOD civilians, and while the sequester protects Active Duty, it doesn't protect the civilians. What is it going to mean to my husband's medical treatment as he comes back from being wounded, injured defending this Nation, if the nurses and health professionals at this hospital are furloughed 1 day a week?

In the same roundtable, another wounded warrior said to me: Boy, the economy is really going to suffer if we have this sequester. We are going to lose jobs, and the economy could shrink. I am a reservist.

He was a wounded warrior as a reservist, waiting to go back into the civilian workforce into a job with a Federal agency that does national security. What is that going to mean to me? Is there a hiring freeze? Is there a pay freeze? Is this a furlough? This wounded warrior was wondering about his economic future.

At the shipyard at Newport News--what a good news story. We Americans, we Virginians, we manufacture the largest items that are manufactured on planet Earth--nuclear aircraft carriers--in that shipyard. What a wonderful American example of ingenuity that is. Yet in looking at these sequester cuts, as repairs and other projects and programs are being scaled back, the workers of that shipyard are asking about the stability of their work and about whether the ships we put out and we put our people on will be truly ready to do the work they need to do.

At another private shipyard, the owner, a small businessman that has a shipyard in Hampton Roads, said: I have 50 employees. The way the Navy plans to deal with sequestration is to dramatically reduce maintenance in the third and fourth quarters of the year. I am going to issue WARN notices to tell 300 of my 450 employees they are not going to have a job. I just don't see how I can run this business without them, but I don't have the business to keep them if these sequestration cuts go through.

At a VA hospital in Richmond, the VA Corps services are protected under the sequester, but they are under hiring freezes. They compete with private sector hospitals to hire nurses and physicians, and they say that is getting tougher and tougher to do. They do research in Richmond about traumatic brain injury, and that research money is not protected from sequestration. So this research that will help us treat our wounded warriors better is in jeopardy if the sequester goes through.

It is not just military cuts. In Head Start, I talk with teachers who are facing significant cuts in programs for at-risk kids, even at a time where, because of the economy, the number of at-risk children in their classrooms is growing and growing and the number of children total in their classrooms is growing and growing.

On Monday a number of us were at National Airport to talk about the effect of sequester on something that is fairly basic, the experience of the Americans by the millions and millions who travel every day in the air: longer lines, potentially higher prices.

This is what Virginians were telling me as I went to talk to them about what we were doing in Washington and the likely consequences they were going to see in their lives. Again and again, what they said to me was go up and find a solution.

I went to a bluegrass concert on Saturday afternoon. I was wearing blue jeans and a Carhartt jacket and I was taking an hour off to listen to a set of music. I sat next to a guy who appeared to be about 80 years old, ramrod straight, energetic. He was a veteran wearing a cap from his Navy service. About halfway through the set he leaned over to me and he said: Now, I know you are here for music. You didn't come here to politic. I said: That is right. I am here for music. He said: So all I am going to say is this. There is not a single thing you are going to do, plus or minus--or not do--that will affect my quality of life. I am fine. But I am telling you, for the good of the country, you ought to go up and figure out a way to get people to work together and find some deal.

So that is what my citizens were saying to me on this trip, just in the last 2 weeks, at every stop: find a deal, work together. Not a single person said: Protect my job, protect my program, protect my priority by making the cuts in other areas worse. Not one person said that. They were asking for a balanced approach, where there would be pain, where there would be a balance of cuts but also revenues, and we would try to tackle this in a targeted way.

Some statistics and thoughts. These are stories from individuals. Now let's look at the immediate impact on the Virginia economy and on other important goals: our military readiness and defense posture.

A couple weeks ago we heard at an Armed Services Committee meeting from Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey as Secretary Panetta was exiting in that role. They had just announced that CENTCOM--the portion of the military that controls the space including Afghanistan--wants to have two carriers in the Middle East to project American force to try to prevent or reduce any dangerous, provocative activities by Iran or anyone else and to protect our men and women in service, if the need should happen. Their military judgment was we needed two carriers and that force there to protect them. But about 2 weeks ago, the DOD Secretary said: We are not going to have two carriers; we are just going to have one.

Thousands of sailors who were on the verge of deploying, many of whom had sublet their apartments, put their cars in storage, sold their cars, cancelled their cell phones, sent families back to other places in the country to stay with their parents, learned within just a very few days it was all being turned topsy-turvy.

Having only one carrier in the Middle East, maybe nothing bad will happen. But when the military leadership of the country suggests we should have two and we decide, because of budget indecision, let's only have one, that sends a message. It sends a message to our friends, it sends a message to those we would be protecting that our commitment is wavering, and it also sends a message to our adversaries that our commitment might be wavering.

We heard many bits of testimony that day from General Dempsey and Secretary Panetta about how our readiness, our ability to respond with flexibility, gets compromised if we don't get this right.

On the National Guard side, I visited a National Guard Army called the Stonewall Brigade in Staunton, VA. Here is something interesting. This National Guard combat brigade, the Stonewall Brigade, their first action as a brigade was 20 years before the French and Indian Wars. Their first action as a brigade was in the 1740s. Since then, they have deployed again and again to protect Americans. Yet they were talking about sequestration affecting their ability to train their people.

One of the individuals who was the commander of that brigade said in a

very powerful way: I am going to send my people, and they are going to do their best, but I would rather send them 100 percent trained than 80 or 85 percent trained. If we act now after we sequester and reduce training, we will be sending people into service 80 or 85 percent trained.

Our DOD civilians, the Pentagon has announced it would take steps to furlough 800,000 civilian employees for up to 22 days a year. In Virginia alone--one State--90,000 individuals, beginning at the end of March, early April, will face the beginnings of furloughs 1 day a week for up to 22 weeks.

There aren't many towns and cities in Virginia that have more than 90,000 people. Yet we would take all those people and put their economic livelihood at risk for the foreseeable future as we try to figure this out. Let me tell you who some of these folks are. These are the nurses who treat our wounded warriors. These are our air traffic controllers who keep us safe in the air. Think of those individuals and the fact that they are trying to make a living for their families and they are trying to do good service for their fellow Virginians and fellow Americans and then multiply that by 90,000, and that is just one State's worth.

We all want a vibrant private sector. We all think the private sector being strong is the key to economic growth. The estimate of most economists is that Virginians, because of sequestration and reductions to private contracting, would stand to lose up to 200,000 jobs, 137,000 on the defense side and nearly 70 on the nondefense side.

The Newport News Shipbuilding company that I announced earlier, the largest industrial employer in Virginia, is preparing to shrink; facing smaller ship repairs and having to issue WARN notices to their employees. We see this all over the Commonwealth.

Educators. Virginia stands to lose $14 million in funding for primary and secondary education, and this is funding that is targeted. It is targeted to funding to the most disadvantaged students, title I funding. One hundred ninety teachers' jobs are at risk and about 14,000 fewer disadvantaged students will receive these services. In a particular passion of mine, Head Start and early childhood education, 70,000 students nationally will lose their spaces in early childhood education Head Start because of the sequester; about 1,000 of those are in Virginia.

The statistics are grim, and these aren't just numbers on a page or numbers in a budget book. These are parents who are sitting at a kitchen table already worrying about how to make ends meet and finding that they are going to have 1 less day of work every week, potentially, for the next 20 weeks or people who spent their lives in shipbuilding and they are going to be given WARN notices, with no clear indication of when their company or other companies might start hiring again.

Those are the short-term impacts. Let me talk, for a minute, about some long-term impacts because these are the stories that aren't necessarily in the newspaper. But as I listened to my constituents last week, they made this case, and they made it in a way I found to be pretty compelling.

When the decision was announced about the USS Truman not being deployed, there was a 20-year-old airwoman aviator on the carrier who was quoted in the newspaper as saying: I was so excited to be on my first deployment for my country. I want to have a military career, but I am starting to think that might not be realistic.

We have a whole generation of young people who serve in the military, and they are our future generals and Joint Chiefs of Staff and future Deputy Secretaries of Defense and Secretaries of Defense in that leadership corps. They have decided they want to devote their future to protecting the Nation. But what is happening in this building is making them believe maybe this is not a realistic career choice.

I spoke to ROTC students at the University of Virginia. These are folks on the verge of commissioning as officers in all four primary service branches--Army, Marine, Air Force, Navy--and I spoke to them last week and one of them said this to me. I found this very chilling.

I am training to be an officer because I want to serve my

country and guess what, I am willing to put myself into

harm's way to known hostilities and unknown hostilities in

the world, to serve my country. But I have to ask myself, am

I willing to put my career at risk by making a career choice

to pursue a path when I do not have confidence that the

civilian political leadership of the country has a commitment

to me and to my colleagues?

Being willing to face hostilities and enemy fire--they signed up for that. But as they think about their military careers, whether they would do their 4 years and leave or whether they would make a career out of it, the message we send from this building and this Capitol about whether we are committed to them is one of the factors they utilize to try to make their decisions.

Similarly, students around this Commonwealth and country who are thinking about being early childhood educators would wonder about the future of early childhood or Head Start programs. In a really funny interchange with some welders and the president of the shipyard, the Newport News Shipyard, which is run by Huntington Ingalls, he said: If we do layoffs or scale back and we lose nuclear engineers for the subs and carriers, they can find other jobs. In fact, the president, Mike Petters, a good friend, said: It is easier for this company to replace me, the CEO, than it is to replace a nuclear engineer.

But if our commitment to shipbuilding and ship repair and ship refurb is questionable and a nuclear engineer has other career options and they have to analyze which career option they should pick, or a welder has other career options--and all do--and they have to decide which career options they pick, we will find it down the road increasingly difficult to have the kind of talent we need to do the jobs that need to be done to protect this Nation if we are not sending them a signal that we can find compromise, find agreements, and provide funding in an appropriate way for these critical services.

Here is the good news. The good news is we can avoid this. In fact, we have an obligation to avoid this. I was a little bit surprised when I came to the Senate to learn some things I did not know. I thought I was an educated observer. I was a little bit surprised, for example, that in the Budget Act that deals with how budgets are written, the budgets do not even go to the President. It is purely congressional. When the House and Senate pass a budget and then when it is compromised, it is purely congressional. Appropriations acts of course go to the President for signature, but they never get there unless Congress does them.

So while everyone has a responsibility to try to make this right, and the President and his team definitely have a responsibility, this is a congressional constitutional responsibility. There is a unique legislative prerogative for us to get this right and for us to avoid the self-inflicted damage to the economy and to people that every last person who voted was sure would not occur. Again, I say we are in a unique situation where we have designed a punishment and we would allow that punishment to affect individuals and our economy. I do not think there is a precedent that would be similar in the history of this body.

In order to address it, we have to find a balanced approach, as my citizens were telling me, and not gimmicks. No more sequester or supercommittee, no more continuing resolution. There is a process. We should follow that process. The process involves compromise. The process involves listening. And we need to do it.

I will say one more thing about why it is important that we do it, and not just for the economy. A lot of people think we are broken. I was struck in talks to some of my citizens that for as many people as do not like the current President, no one says to me that the Presidency as an institution is broken. For as many people as do not like this or that decision of the Supreme Court or the judiciary, no one says to me they think the judiciary is broken. But the third branch of government--really the first branch of government, we are first in the Constitution, the legislative branch--many people look at this potential sequester and other similar things and they worry about whether we are broken. So we not only have a constitutional obligation to fix it, we really need those of us, and all of us who care about this institution in the Capitol, we have to do our part to fix it.

The good news is that we can. Let me show you what we have done already by way of dealing with our fiscal challenges, and especially tackling deficits so we can try to get our balance sheet more in control. I have three very simple charts that are pretty easy to follow.

Congress, both Houses, and the President, have taken thus far, 2010 to now, steps that have reduced the deficit going forward over a 10- year period by about $2.4 trillion. This is how this has been done. I get no credit for this because this all happened before I got here. This is what Congress has done over the last couple of years to reduce our deficit path and bring us closer to balance to the tune of $2.4 trillion. We have done spending cuts of about 60 percent of the total. Because of some of these other actions, we have been able to project a savings in interest payments of another 14 percent. And with the decision at year end on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the bipartisan compromise that resulted, we have put in new revenue of about 26 percent of this total. All you have to know from looking at this chart is it is balanced.

We could argue the ratio. We might like it more red, more green, more blue. We could argue about the ratio. But it is a balanced approach of revenue, of spending cuts and of interest savings. That is what we have done already, and I give praise to the Members of Congress and the President who have been able to take that step.

But we all know we have more to do. So now that test is before us and that challenge and chore is on our table. We have more to do and there are two alternatives we will likely be debating and voting on within the next couple of days in this body, a Democratic approach and a GOP approach to how do we do more. That is because most would agree if we have done about $2.4 trillion of deficit reduction already that we need to do about another $1.5 trillion or so over the course of the next 10 years. We will be voting on one proposal tomorrow that has been advanced by the Democratic majority. That says we will additionally close our deficit over the course of this year. We will do it in a way that will push us forward to finding a bigger solution. And we will do it in a balanced way: 50 percent through new revenue, closing some corporate tax loopholes that have outlived their usefulness, raising rates at the top end for a very few Americans who can afford it. I talk to Virginians and they know we can afford it. So 50 percent of our additional deficit reduction would be on the new revenue side and 50 percent would be on spending cuts--spending cuts, many of which have already been agreed to in this body.

One of the core kinds of spending cuts--and it is important here--the spending cuts in the proposal we will vote on tomorrow are not across- the-board pain for everybody equally because everything is not worth everything else. They are targeted spending cuts, the right kind of spending cuts. So, for example, this body last summer voted on a farm bill to reduce significantly farm subsidies. It was bipartisan, Democratic and Republican votes. That bill died on the House side, but that notion that we can save money and that we should, that had bipartisan support, that is in the spending cuts component of the package we will talk about tomorrow, and that is the Democratic approach.

Is it magic? No, it is not magic. You might argue about the ratio. You might argue about the items. But the key to it is, just as what we have done so far to reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion has been a balanced approach, the approach we will vote on tomorrow on the Democratic side is a balanced approach.

There is also a Republican approach, or approaches. It was a little bit unclear as I took the floor whether there will be a single bill or multiple bills. But the GOP approach to this, which they laid on the table and which we will also debate and vote on, is, as you will see, all spending cuts. They might be different spending cuts from those in the sequester. In the context this will emerge. But there is no revenue in this approach. It is not a balanced approach, and I argue, based on what we have already done with the $2.4 trillion, the right way to do this is to do it in a balanced way. That is the right thing for the economy. It is the right thing to soften the effect of these cuts. It is the right thing to make sure that people's lives are not needlessly turned topsy-turvy.

Can we save? Sure we can, and we should. But you cannot fix a balance sheet on just one side of the balance sheet. You have to look at both sides of the balance sheet, and I think that is what we will be debating over the next couple of days.

I have been thinking about this, and the last thing I will say before I close and talk about an upside is, when I was home in Richmond over the weekend after this week-long tour, knowing we would be coming here today to debate about these proposals, something happened in my hometown that I want to recommend to the contemplation of my colleagues here in the Senate. Virginia had been wrestling for two or three decades about what to do about transportation because it would be good for the economy for us to invest in transportation.

I will be candid and even sheepish. I was the Governor of Virginia and I strived for 4 years to get my legislature to do something meaningful, to invest in transportation, and aside from a few modest wins here or there I never was able to convince my legislature to do what I thought needed to be done.

Saturday in Richmond, 90 miles from here, 4 days ago, my Republican Governor, Bob McDonald, a friend, a Republican House of Delegates, overwhelmingly Republican House of Delegates, 2 to 1, and a Republican Senate--it is a split Senate 20-20 but there is a President who breaks ties who is a Republican Lieutenant Governor so it is a Republican majority body--Republican Governor and Republican legislature decided to do something to benefit the economy and here is what they did. They did a package of $880 million of revenue for transportation, annually when fully phased in, and 80 percent of the package is new revenue and 20 percent is spending cuts in general fund programs that would be repurposed to transportation.

For them to do that, they had to make a hard decision. For them to do something that was balanced, because an individual whose name is often mentioned in Washington, Grover Norquist, said can you not do this without violating your pledges, and others said it would be anathema to ever raise a tax or fee and it will be politically damaging and it will be economically wrong, and a Republican Governor and a Republican legislature looked at them and said: The right thing to do to benefit our economy is to take a balanced approach. And by an overwhelming majority in both Houses, supported by Republicans and Democrats and celebrated with excitement by a Republican Governor, this is what happened, 90 miles from here a few days ago in order to benefit the economy.

A transportation package is not a precise analog to what we are wrestling with here, but it is pretty close. This was a step that was taken to benefit the economy. It was done in a balanced way. We are faced with a fundamental decision about whether we are going to benefit the economy or whether we are going to intentionally allow something to happen that will hurt the economy. I think the lesson for what happened in Richmond is the economy benefits from a balanced approach and an imbalanced approach is not going to be the way we get to a solution that is good for the economy and good for people.

The last thing I will say is this. Much of my discussion has been about trying to avert bad things--people being furloughed, people losing their jobs, small ship repair yards potentially having to close, wounded warriors not having the nursing care they need, students eligible for Head Start not being able to go into classrooms, Guards men and women not receiving the kinds of training they need to go into the field and be fully prepared--much of what I have described has been about trying to avert negative consequences.

But the best part of all is I think we are in a unique moment where it is not just about averting the negative. I think we can do something that will have a positive effect, that will avert negative consequences, certainly, but by getting some certainty and by showing a spirit of compromise and cooperation, we will be sending a message from

this body that will have a positive effect on the economy.

There are some who see signs of the economy showing some strength. The stock market is doing pretty well. It is a bit volatile every day, but where are we on the stock market? We are doing pretty well. There was news about the housing prices and housing market coming up. Consumer confidence has been stronger than expected. These have not yet congealed into the trends we hope to see, but there are signs and there is evidence that we have an economy that is ready to achieve some lift.

If we look at our global competitors, we see that there are some weaknesses. This is a lesson I heard preached again and again by my senior Senator as he talked about global economies around the world. Senator Warner talks about how Europe and the Euro Zone has its challenges, the Japanese economy has its challenges, and the Chinese economy has not been quite as strong as it had been. Our major global competitors are not just clicking on all eight cylinders.

If we do something right now, it will send a message throughout the economy that we are not only open for business, but there is a balanced approach that can be reached by a Senate and a Congress that is willing to work together and put country first and do what is right for the economy. I think we have every reason to believe we will not only avert the negative consequences I spent the last half hour talking about, but we will take those positive trends in the economy and put some more healing into the economy.

We will see some more lift that could be significant. We will see more of that cash that is in bank accounts invested back into the American economy. We will put some distance between ourselves and some of our other global competitors. This is what is at stake for us if we get this right.

It should be enough for us to do the right thing and find a balanced approach to avoid hurting people and to avoid hurting the economy. We will not only get an additional benefit if we act in a balanced way-- because I believe we will avert those consequences--but we will see our economy lift in a more accelerated way.

I will conclude by saying this: This is a moment where we have a choice to make. I was with Leader Reid an hour or two ago, and we sat through a beautiful ceremony where a statue was unveiled of Rosa Parks. One of the speakers talked about a very humble and pedestrian setting where she had a decision to make. The decision was, Do I just do what has always been done? Do I just kind of keep drifting into a situation that I know is unjust and unequal or do I decide to do something different?

We are drifting toward something that is very bad, something that Members of Congress believed strongly when the bill was first put in place should not happen and would harm people and would harm our economy. That is the moment we are in right now, a moment to make a decision.

The decision is, Do we allow ourselves to drift in a way that hurts people or do we choose a balanced approach that will help people, strengthen the economy, strengthen our budget, strengthen our ability to create jobs, and strengthen the reputation of this body?

Thank you.

I yield the floor.